CASTINE – Residents rejected several attempts to make cuts to the municipal budget at the annual town meeting Monday and, instead, added more than $20,000 to the proposed budget.

Joe Spinazola led the charge for reducing the budget, offering almost $100,000 in cuts to the budget over several different warrant articles.

“I’ve got a series of amendments that will cut about $95,000 from the budget,” he said. “It won’t hurt the town one iota.”

Spinazola argued that the municipal budget had increased by 61 percent in the past few years and that he wanted to see “responsible spending” on the part of the town. Afterward, he said he hoped the town would have kept the budget increases at the 2 percent to 3 percent level as the school department had. Spinazola is chairman of the town’s school committee.

Selectman Peter Vogell opposed the idea of cutting the budget, noting that the selectmen and the budget committee had worked hard to develop it.

“We’ve worked very hard to come up with a budget we felt was best for the town and all the people in the town,” he said.

Although there was some support for reducing spending, voters rejected each proposal to cut the budget.

Instead they added funds to specific accounts: $6,200 to the Fire Department salaries account to bring up the stipend paid to the fire chief and assistant chief; $4,500 for Hancock County Home Care; $10,000 for the firetruck reserve account; and $500 for the recreation account.

After hearing a report from engineering consultant Bill Olver, residents authorized the town to borrow up to $2.75 million to upgrade the wastewater treatment system. After noting that despite municipal efforts to upgrade the town’s sewer system, Olver said the plant still suffered from high rates of storm water infiltration that makes it difficult to treat wastewater effectively and causes violations of the town’s discharge license, the most recent in November 2004.

Olver has proposed an upgrade for the plant that would involve installing new equipment, including backup systems that would increase the plant’s capacity and ability to treat wastewater to meet current environmental standards.

The upgraded plant should have a useful life of between 20 and 30 years, Olver said. It will take about six months to a year to design the improvements and another year for construction.

In other action, voters, with almost no discussion, authorized the town to borrow $1.2 million to design and build a 600,000-gallon reservoir for the town’s water system that will replace the existing, aging tank.

By a decisive margin, residents rejected a petitioned proposal to disband the existing historic preservation commission and turn its duties over to the town’s planning board.

Opponents of the measure argued that the move would result in the loss of the town’s designation as a certified local government, which qualifies it for grant funding through the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. The town has received funding for continuing archaeological studies in Witherle Woods and architectural studies in town.

“There’s nothing to be gained and a great deal to be lost,” commission chairman Arnold Berleant said.

Berleant also cited the town attorney’s advice that the measure should be rejected because it did not include required amendments to two town ordinances needed to implement the proposed change. Such changes also require a public hearing, he said.

Robert Bonini, who proposed the change, charged that decisions by the current commission members have been inconsistent, and he disputed the need for any changes to town ordinances.

“This is a matter of operations and personnel,” he said. “It’s not a matter of anything other than that.”

A call for a written ballot on the issue was defeated.

With more than a little finger-pointing directed at the selectmen for a bad decision, voters rejected a proposal to keep the World War II memorial on the town common. The monument had been moved from Emerson Hall during construction.

Most speakers agreed that the monument should stand where “it was originally memorialized,” outside Emerson Hall. The sentiment of the meeting was that the monument should be moved back to its original home before Memorial Day this year.